hands/ but by God's grace he accomplishes nothing. Far^ well and pray for me, a very busy brother.
Brother Martin Luther.
��176. LUTHER TO GEORGE SPALATIN. Endcrs, ii. 156. Wittenberg^ September 22, 1519^
Greeting. At length, Spalatin, my Tesseradeccu^ is coming to you, late, indeed, but even thus hardly having weathered the storms of all my other occupations. If you care to, you may translate it and offer it to our most illustrious elector with a prefatory letter. For I have begun to consider it too minute a thing for a double epistolary dedication to the elector, like a two-handed loving-cup.*
I am also sending my "foolish Galatians,"* preserved in the brine of wit.* Lotther, of Leipsic, sent them to be given to you, as you see. My work against Buck Emser is not yet done.* . . .
The bearer of this letter begs me to write to the elector for him for license to exercise the baker's craft at Wittenberg. For I hear that the bakers have forbidden him to do so because he is son of a man who was once a bathman ; so exclusive is the nobility of tradesmen. Lest I should annoy the elector, I ask you to make this petition to him, in my name if you wish.
But, dear me, I almost forgot to say that I would like to see my copy of the Tesseradecas again after it has served its time. For I am wont to console myself with these trifles, nor do I always have before me the considerations which I there set down, if only for the reason that by thinking of them they become ever richer. Farewell and commend me to the elector.
Martin Luther, Augustinian.
iMiltitz's words in German.
- Weimar, ri. 99. Cf. Smith, op. eit,, 78*
'A pun; "ampuIU" means botli a cop with two handles and bombast
- Cf. Galatians, iii. 1.
ft"Multo sale conditos'*; t use "wit" in the old-fashioned sense of genera! int^- lectual keenness. From the stylistic standpoint, the Galatians was ike most carefully prepared of all Luther's commentaries.
Contra Aegocerotem Enuerum, one of the sequela of the Leipsic debate. Weimar, ii. 655.
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